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than by technical restrictions. . . . Armstrong likened the situation that had grown up in radio to that following the invention of the printing press, when governments and ruling interests attempted to control this new instrument of mass communications by imposing restrictive licenses on it. This tyranny was broken only when it became possible for men freely to acquire printing presses and freely to run them. FM in this sense was as great an invention as the printing presses, for it gave radio the opportunity to strike off its shackles.12
This potential for FM radio was never realized--not because Armstrong was wrong about the technology, but because he underestimated the power of "vested interests, habits, customs and legislation"13 to retard the growth of this competing technology.
Now the very same claim could be made about Internet radio. For again, there is no technical limitation that could restrict the number of Internet radio stations. The only restrictions on Internet radio are those imposed by the law. Copyright law is one such law. So the first question we should ask is, what copyright rules would govern Internet radio?
But here the power of the lobbyists is reversed. Internet radio is a new industry. The recording artists, on the other hand, have a very powerful lobby, the RIAA. Thus when Congress considered the phenomenon of Internet radio in 1995, the lobbyists had primed Congress to adopt a different rule for Internet radio than the rule that applies to terrestrial radio. While terrestrial radio does not have to pay our hypothetical Marilyn Monroe when it plays her hypothetical recording of "Happy Birthday" on the air, Internet radio does. Not only is the law not neutral toward Internet radio--the law actually burdens Internet radio more than it burdens terrestrial radio.
This financial burden is not slight. As Harvard law professor William Fisher estimates, if an Internet radio station distributed ad- free popular music to (on average) ten
